Navajo Area

Navajo Nation Map

The Navajo Area Indian Health Service (NAIHS) is responsible for the delivery of health services to American Indians in portions of the States of AZ, NM, Utah (a region known as the 4 corners Area of the US.) NAIHS is primarily responsible for healthcare to members of The Navajo Nation and Southern Band of San Juan Paiutes, but care to other Native Americans (Zuni, Hopi) is also provided. The Navajo Nation is the largest Indian tribe in the United States and has the largest reservation, which encompasses more than 25,000 square miles in Northeast Arizona, Northwest New Mexico, Southern Utah and Colorado, with three satellite locations in central New Mexico.

Comprehensive health care is provided by NAIHS through inpatient, outpatient contract, and community health programs centered around 6 hospitals, 7 health centers, and 15 health stations. Six hospitals range in size from 32 beds in Crownpoint, New Mexico, to 99 beds at the Gallup Indian Medical Center in Gallup, New Mexico. Health Centers operate full-time clinics, some of which provide emergency services. Smaller communities have health stations that operate only part-time.

A major portion of the NAIHS health care delivery system is sponsored by the Navajo Tribe itself, which operates the Navajo Division of Health (NDOH) in Window Rock, Arizona. The NDOH created in 1977, has the mission of ensuring that quality and culturally acceptable health care is available and accessible to Native Americans through coordination, regulation, and where necessary, direct service delivery. The Navajo Nation provides a variety of health-related services in the areas of nutrition, aging, substance abuse, community health representative (e.g., outreach), and emergency medical services (e.g., ambulance). The NAIHS is one of 12 IHS regional administrative units of the Indian Health Service, an agency of the U.S. Public Health Service Department of Human Health Services.